


A Murder-Conspiracy

by xathira



Series: Prince of the Unknown [14]
Category: Over the Garden Wall (Cartoon & Comics)
Genre: Beast Wirt, Brotherly Love, Gen, Mental Corruption, Prince!Wirt AU, The Plot Thickens, but it's murdery, creepy bird, monstrous behavior, vanishing acts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-29
Updated: 2019-12-28
Packaged: 2021-02-27 05:33:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 12,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22011871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xathira/pseuds/xathira
Summary: The brothers want dearly to reunite, to catch up like they're supposed to.  Like they deserve.Beatrice and an evil bird have other plans.
Series: Prince of the Unknown [14]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1516961
Comments: 50
Kudos: 167





	1. 🙞How🙜

Wirt’s feelings in relation to Greg have always been… complicated. He can honestly say that he loves his baby brother and _has_ loved him since Greg was born almost ten years ago, even though for most of Greg’s life that love was reluctant and twined with a barbed-wire layer of resentment. Jealousy ate at Wirt for many reasons: the easy way Greg took up space that Wirt had retreated from; the joy that Greg inspired in Wirt’s mother and stepfather—which became a foil through which they judged Wirt; Greg’s complete lack of fear, of second-guessing, his “ask forgiveness not permission” recklessness where Wirt labored under permanent cuffs of anxiety. Wirt _wanted_ to warm himself to this little human who only desired to follow him everywhere, who seemed to believe Wirt held all the knowledge in the world… yet he frosted over whenever Greg’s sunshine encroached too close on his diligently cultivated melancholy, convinced Greg’s blind acceptance would hinder him somehow.

Not an exemplary form of fraternal love, Wirt admits. But their trials in the Unknown helped clip the brittleness around that affection, helped it grow softer with a healthy vein of protectiveness, until Wirt knew in the harsh clarity of a terrifying moment that he would trade his life for Greg’s safety.

He _did_ trade his life for Greg’s safety.

That’s the job of an older sibling, right? Maybe Wirt always knew that Greg was somebody better than himself, a spirit fated to shed light wherever he went when Wirt could offer only the close-minded angst of his poetry. It was right and good that Greg had made it out, and Wirt had stayed. It was not _fair,_ or without its share of agony on Wirt’s part… but when Wirt imagines the alternative—Greg consumed in Edelwood, heart unmoving, a void gouged into the world they left behind—his insides contract around a stab of terror. Greg, dead? There might as well be no dawn. Greg living gives a purpose for Wirt remaining alive. The Beast goes on because he clings frantically to the hope that when Greg escaped the Unknown, he made it _home,_ alive and well and capable of moving on and forgetting the big brother who only stepped up when it was _literally_ a matter of life and death. 

Wirt extinguished the Dark Lantern and transformed into The Beast because he believed that was his only option for saving Greg. If Greg has returned to the Unknown… what could that mean? And what sacrifices will be required to send Greg home once again?

A pair of starry avian eyes drilling into his brain warn that this time the price is infinitely bloodier.

After dumping Greg into the bluebirds’ nest, Wirt dissolves himself—mercilessly seeking the creature that seems to follow him like the shadow that paints its plumage. An oak betrays the raven’s position; Wirt pounces forth from the enormous tree’s deeply-lined trunk and snags the unsuspecting bird in his talons in one fluid motion, deadly and graceful as a hunting cat.

“Got you,” he growls. His extremities tremble, electric with too much nervous energy, the raven a live wire in his hand. He feels the hue of his irises sour into an acid yellow that burns the evening’s cool steel-blue. “What are you? Why are you stalking me?”

The raven leisurely sweeps its penlight orbs from the mill toward the claws gripping it tight; that too-luminous stare—ringed like those of the monstrous dog that attacked Greg and Wirt when they’d first come to the mill—combs its way up Wirt’s arm, his shoulder, and finally pins him boldly in the face… a calculating unhurried appraisal that is so utterly un-birdlike it worms instinctive revulsion into Wirt’s stomach. 

Hunger—deep, ravenous, murderous hunger—guts him instantly, something behind the raven’s impassive eyes reaching deep inside him and yanking up his most Beastly urges by their roots. _Greg’s just hiding in a house, separated by nothing more than a door,_ Wirt hears himself think, and his heart slams at his sternum. _Walls are nothing to The Beast, nor windows nor locks, and that soul is ours we already claimed it so it is OURS—_

Wirt bellows to drown out the ceaseless hunger and squeezes the raven as if to intimidate it—to remind it that _Wirt_ is the one in control—and something slick squelches between his knuckles. 

Wirt gurgles out a disgusted noise and reflexively opens his hand. The raven drops—snaps its wings open—and kites into the night, flying out of bounds from where Wirt can physically track it. 

The pangs don’t stop wracking Wirt’s skinny frame until almost an hour after the unnatural black bird has vanished. And even then, without the raven pecking into his mind and sewing starvation into his abdomen, Wirt still senses his little brother as a mouthwatering furnace tucked safely inside with Beatrice’s family. Bright, loving, _fearless_ Greg, who took one glance at corrupted, ugly Wirt about to do something unspeakable and threw himself into a trusting hug. Greg, who laughed at the flowers in Wirt’s antlers instead of running away. That unconditional, effortless acceptance has Wirt melting all over again. He leans against the oak’s trunk, hooves dangling off the bough, and measures out a shaky breath. 

With no evil raven confounding his thoughts, Wirt can examine his maelstrom of emotions with a less biased eye. He _wants-craves-adores_ Greg. He’s driven to crush Greg in his claws and never let go, to gnash the purity of Greg’s soul in his molars, to squeeze and rip and consume, to bathe in that perfect brightness until he forgets the permanent hollowness in his chest—but he could build a treefort for Greg too, and show him some of the wonders in the Unknown that Greg hasn’t seen yet, and if _anything_ looks at Greg the wrong way then Wirt will slash it into tiny pieces and use those pieces to fertilize the woods. 

For each genuine spark of _protect Greg, watch over Greg_ that glows through him there is a vicious answering howl of violence, equally as powerful. The dichotomy of these opposing forces clashes so brutally and with such tremendous pressure that when Wirt inhales he _swears_ his ribs are separating from their cartilage, individual painful _pops_ as his body comes apart. 

He knocks his forehead against the oak’s bark, moaning words of self-hatred. Cursing his existence and the cruelty of not being able to celebrate Greg’s return. 

He’s never loved something so much that a part of him wanted to hurt it.

🙞 ------------------------- 🙜

Beatrice scoops Greg up from behind and falls backward into the house, coughing when Greg lands on her diaphragm. He instantly fights her—yelling for Wirt, frustration reaching its quavering apex—and past his wildly windmilling arms Beatrice makes eye contact with Bram. “Uh—a little _help?_ ”

Bram does not hesitate to seize Greg around his middle with one strong arm and holds him by his hip like a bundle of wheat. Sensing his defeat, Greg goes limp with a muttered “oh, rats” and glowers intensely at the floorboards. Everyone, including her incredibly confused parents, remains blessedly quiet as Beatrice stands and brushes off her nightdress, impatiently sweeping her hair over her shoulders; they clearly expect her to have all the answers. 

But Beatrice doesn’t have time for answers. It’s time for action.

“Take Greg upstairs,” she snaps at Bram, bolting the back door shut. He only twists his mouth quizzically, so she has to shove around him to reach the front door and lock _that,_ anger roaring up in her like a lion. “I mean it! Upstairs! NOW!”

Greg hollers over the converging brouhaha of her kin, her younger siblings racing up the steps to follow Bram while the rest of them trip over themselves following Beatrice’s orders. They throw the latches on windows. Push chairs against doorknobs. Stoke the fire in the hearth until it blazes again, its orange glow outlining the perspiration on Beatrice’s temples and the concerned, harried expressions of her family. If anyone attempts to engage her in conversation while she works, checks, delegates, Beatrice does not heed them; she’s too busy shaking as if she chugged five cups of coffee, shooting glances out the windows and counting her brothers and sisters.

In a few minutes the house is locked down and everybody huddles in her brothers’ bedroom, protectively circling Greg. The distressed lad sits on the floor with his arms mulishly crossed. He’s wearing a soft shirt and flannel pants, the whole ensemble decorated with deformed green lizards. His tawny hair might be rumpled from Bram manhandling him, or it might be because Greg just rolled out of bed. Beatrice sinks heavily to her knees in front of him, still breathing hard from scrutinizing every possible way that Wirt could somehow break in. Twelve pairs of eyes ogle her as if she’s insane. This is going great. 

“Okay. Introduction time. As Wirt probably mentioned, this is Greg.” Beatrice clears her throat and motions to Greg with her hands pressed together as if in prayer… a prayer for patience, and for the universe to stop dumping its unwelcome drama on her and her family. “He’s Wirt’s little brother.”

Several of her brothers and sisters blurt out their questions at the same time. They all want to know what Greg is doing here if Wirt brought him home; why Wirt was acting so strange, so _scared;_ why Beatrice is acting the same way. 

“All of you shut up,” Beatrice cuts in as politely as she can, holding her throbbing head between her hands. Normally her mother or father would reprimand her for her shortness, but they preside over this gathering like two baliffs, giving their daughter time to speak her mind before they decide what to do. Beatrice consciously smoothes the brambles from her tone when she addresses Greg. “Hey, bud. You probably don’t recognize me like this… it’s me, Bea—”

“Beatrice,” Greg finishes for her, not bothering to uncross his arms. He’s puffed his cheeks out in a pout that Beatrice has seen a million times on her own brothers’ and sisters’ faces. “I knew it was you.”

Her jaw hangs open. That can’t be possible. He probably just heard a dozen people shouting her name as she charged through the house. “But… but I… but I was a _bird_ the last time you saw me. How could you…?”

Greg squints judgingly up at her, as if Beatrice is _intentionally_ acting dense. “‘Cause I saw you. I dreamed this whooooole place.” He indicates the packed room with a wide sweep of his arms. His reply makes everybody’s brows furrow even deeper; Beatrice shares a glance with Audrey, who shrugs her shoulders at Cordelia, who shakes her head at a loss with Dorian and Andrew. Greg sighs in a way Beatrice _knows_ he picked up from Wirt, and starts pointing at each ex-bluebird in turn. 

“Ma’am, Sir,” the lad designates Mother and Father. They both grin, caught off guard, at the titles Wirt formally addresses them with. “Andrew. Cordelia. Dorian. Dante. Florence Nightingale. Edmund. Uh…” He squirms on his bottom to better peer into Bram’s expectant face. “...Bartholomew?” 

Bram flushes at the tittering that surrounds him. “Are you kidding me? I have the _shortest_ name—”

“What do you mean, you dreamed this?” Beatrice demands. She leans forward until her hands are flat on the wood planks of the floor, intently studying Greg’s open expression. “You recognize me? My whole family?” She swallows, throat dry. “You recognized Wirt?”

Greg sighs another patented Wirt-sigh. “Duh. He’s my _brother._ ”

A knot in Beatrice’s chest loosens. At least that’s one thing she doesn’t have to catch Greg up on… she simply needs to figure out a gentle way to explain that Wirt’s Beastly transformation comes with an equally Beastly appetite, one that evidently includes _Greg_ if Wirt’s panicked drop-off indicates anything. _You have to take him, keep him safe._ She’d known what was happening as soon as she heard the legion timbre crowding his voice, saw the pulsating colors of his eyes while he watched Beatrice usher Greg inside.

_Oh, Wirt._

“How come Wirt’s not here?” Greg suddenly asks, thumping an indignant fist on his lap. “What’d he leave for? I came all this way and he ditches me. How d’you like them apples?”

Every pair of eyes shift back on Beatrice. Her Beast, her responsibility. They must be waiting on her to reveal what happened in the days she’d disappeared from the mill, the reasons why she returned muddy and bruised and exhausted mere hours ago. Is Greg’s visitation enough of an excuse not to ground her until she’s dead?

“Beatrice…” Her father prompts into the awaiting quiet. “I think you should tell us what’s going on.” 

Greg tilts his head at her expectantly. A threadbare exhale flutters through her lips, butterflies opening their wings in her stomach. Beatrice runs one hand up her opposite arm and freezes when her fingertips brush the welts left behind by Wirt’s claws… she thinks of those ravenous bone-chilling howls haunting the night, the horrific snarls that erased all evidence of mercy or humanity from a face she used to think of as harmless, Edelwood splintering up from the earth like teeth to pierce a helpless soul. Her throat still scratches when she talks, from all the screaming she had to do to bring Wirt back. Her knuckles are sore. They’d only arrived home this afternoon, and already Wirt has shackled her with another problem, another person Beatrice has to protect, and for the first time since she brought The Beast out of the woods with arrows in his back she _regrets_ it.

It’s because of Wirt that she’s fallen ill with the worst fevers of her life. It’s because of those fevers that Beatrice will never be free. Her future might be years upon years of trailing Wirt like a dog and fighting him like one too, all to prevent him from acting on his savage impulses. The wellbeing of strangers in the Unknown—countless people, innocents, families—depends on her shouldering this onus. And as she realizes this, the weight of everyone’s attention pressing upon her becomes _suffocating_ and she hyperventilates until spots prickle her vision and her stomach gurgles as a pretext to vomiting—

The sharpness of Beatrice’s inhale cuts through the room. “Wirt tried to eat someone,” she states, unable to stop herself, and cries all the harder at the way Greg falls back as if she hit him.

One thing about being a close-knit family is that people know what to do without anyone saying a thing. Rather than fracturing into total chaos, they work around one another like a flock wheeling under the clouds, each person instinctively moving where he or she is needed, communicating with significant gestures and glances that have evolved into an unspoken shorthand among them.

The family splits in half. Mother sweeps for hiccuping, panicking Beatrice and pulls her firmly to her feet, murmuring “to bed with you, girl,” while Beatrice’s sisters patter into their shared bedroom to tuck themselves under the covers. Beatrice doesn’t hope to sleep when Wirt’s out there lurking, probably pacing around the house like a predator, yet the comforting presence of her sisters on either side of her—stroking her hair, snuggling close, not interrogating her like Beatrice expected—eventually lulls her into uneasy dreams, trembling beneath the quilt.

Back in the boys’ room, Father and the brothers try to calm down Greg, who’s shouting with a child’s indignant fury. “Beatrice shouldn’t lie about my brother, she knows better than that!” He wipes his nose with the back of his dinosaur-imprinted sleeve, eyes watery and over-bright. “Wirt wouldn’t eat anybody! He won’t even eat broccoli or tuna casserole so why would Beatrice say that? That’s _stupid!_ ” 

His hand flies over his mouth as if he uttered a curse word. Father gets down on one knee, smiling wanly under his mustache, while Andrew, Bram, and Calvin shuffle in the background to set up a cot for Greg next to Dante. “Wirt is a good lad. I’m sure Beatrice will clear things up for us over a plate of breakfast, and we’ll all have a good laugh.”

“Wirt better clear things up too, ‘cause I’m still miffed that he scurried off,” Greg sniffs. It’s not in his nature to hold onto anger, no matter how righteous, and presently he just looks thoughtful and confused and worn out from yelling. “Am I having a sleepover, then?”

“Yep,” answers Calvin amiably. He fluffs a pillow on Greg’s makeshift cot. “You get to be one of us for the night.”

“Any brother of Wirt’s is a brother of ours,” Andrew adds, and Dorian and Dante repeat that sentiment while Edmund yawns, already half asleep. 

If not for the locked doors and windows, or how the world seems to hold its breath outside, or the way the walls ring from the stark shift between alarm and rest, this could be any other peaceful night at the mill. Even Greg wearing his strange pajamas fits into the tableau. 

For a family that spent some time as bluebirds, this is as close to normal as they could reasonably expect to get.


	2. 🙞Dare🙜

Wirt spends the rest of the night keeping track the raven. He cannot follow it beyond the boundary set by Beatrice’s tether—not unless he takes Beatrice _with him,_ which doesn’t sound like it’s ever going to happen again—so he relies on the Unknown to show him the bird’s location, as his kingdom has done before with the Woodsman. Spying does not require Wirt to teleport, or dissolve. He sits in the oak with his eyes trained on the mill and his mind open to the Unknown, and sweats with the effort of efficiently dividing his attention. 

As it turns out, the raven is slippery in more ways than one. The forest struggles to focus on its oily feathers, the sickly brilliance of its eyes, as if something is purposefully diverting Wirt’s view. As soon as he finds the raven—swaying from the upper branches of a pine or scudding low over an orchard—the scene warps and dips like funhouse mirror. Wirt pants where he sits on the oak’s broad bough and grits his teeth, pushing himself, _willing_ these visions to steady. “Show me,” he orders the woods. “Follow it. Don’t lose it.”

But the raven maddeningly evades him until a migraine cracks open Wirt’s skull and he’s forced to rest, using his cloak as a pillow while he props himself against the oak’s trunk.

He wakes up with robins knocking experimentally at his antlers and exposed hooves. The dawn that rises cotton-candy pink and periwinkle blue over the trees has _nothing_ on the great, heartrending beacon of goodness glowing from the mill, a purity so powerful it makes Wirt swallow down a starved sob. Greg’s existence is the center of a solar system around which Wirt’s _everything_ orbits. The tireless shine of his little brother’s spirit spears through Wirt and backlights the hideous emptiness scooped into his chest cavity. How had The Beast slept through this incredible gravitational pull? 

And what’s going to happen when the raven comes back?

Wirt knows it’s going to. He has no way of pinning down when it first started stalking him, yet he harbors no doubt that the malevolent bird is only avoiding him temporarily. Perhaps it knows that it’s being watched… and it is biding its time until Wirt slips up and provides an opening for it to exert whatever influence it has over The Beast’s fragile sanity. 

“Could you warn me, if the bad raven comes back?” Wirt whispers to the robins. They chirp affirmatively at him, delighted to assist The Caretaker, and flap away to find worms in the expansive garden. Wirt asks the same favor of the other birds that live near the mill, as well as a few arboreal mammals, before taking a deep fortifying breath and dipping himself into nature.

He doesn’t go far. Actually—despite the atrophying rational portion of his brain _pleading_ at him to stop—Wirt sidles closer to the mill, stupidly daring to tie himself into the lilacs by the kitchen window so that he can hopefully glimpse Greg and Beatrice at the breakfast table. Risking Greg’s safety by edging this close is akin to playing with a grenade in a minefield (one mistake, and everyone is _screwed_ ) but surely Wirt can afford an ounce of selfishness... a single moment to bask in the reality of Greg being _here,_ alive, Wirt’s only tie to the life he lost forever. 

Spread throughout the pale purple blossoms and spade-shaped leaves, his veins tracing the delicate fork of stems, Wirt peers from the lilac and through the window into the dining area, his mixed joy and terror causing his hiding place to shudder as if stirred by a breeze.

The family sits uncharacteristically quiet, attention rapt on Beatrice as she haltingly recounts the journey through the swamp. They already know the bare-bones version: what Beatrice shared in her short, rushed letters, the ones faithfully delivered by nightjars and owls. She glosses over what happened to Red, only mumbling that Wirt “tried to hurt her.” But then Greg, sitting between Dorian and Dante, points at Beatrice with his fork. Through a mouthful of flapjacks, he says something that would make Wirt’s stomach heave if he weren’t already encased in a plant.

“Excuse me, young lady, but I believe the words you used last night were ‘Wirt tried to eat someone.’”

Wirt cringes so hard in the lilac that its stems creak.

Nobody else makes a peep. With the exception of Greg, everyone studies their plates as if the secrets of the universe are hidden in swirls of maple syrup. After nearly fifteen seconds, somebody finally speaks.

“Yes, dear” murmurs Ma’am, appearing vaguely queasy—much like every other person seated at the table. “The tale you’re spinning sounds awfully… tame, given such a sensational declaration. What do you mean, Wirt tried to…?”

All Wirt has to do to literally sink into the earth is _go for it._ He can ride the lilac’s roots into the soil and bury himself forever. That’s what he wants to do. Except he already realizes that this scorching humiliation will stick to him like a stain regardless, so what’s the point? 

Beatrice looks absolutely terrible. Wirt’s heart twangs, wondering if she slept at all. He doesn’t miss the bruises peeking from the collar of her nightdress, nor the fading red marks he left on her freckled arms with his claws. _Go ahead,_ he thinks miserably. _You don’t have to protect me. Just tell them. Tell them I’m a monster._

“Remember when Wirt told us about the Edelwood he made?” Beatrice’s voice is quiet and small. Ma’am and Sir share a glance, but Beatrice’s siblings are nodding, recalling the moment they all unanimously agreed that Wirt was their brother no matter what. 

“He said that it just happens,” Andrew prompts. The eldest of Beatrice’s siblings peers at Greg, gauging the boy’s reaction to this conversation; when he’s satisfied that Greg isn’t about to dissolve into hysterics, Andrew clears his throat and starts again. “It’s a natural process. Like… mushrooms growing over rot.”

“Wirt made Edelwood?” At Greg’s question, another vice if silence tightens the table. He’s frowning, not completely comprehending, and outside the kitchen window some of the lilac’s green leaves wither brown and black. “Doesn’t he make all the trees? What does that have to do with Wirt eating someone?”

Purple blooms wilt and drop. Perhaps Greg doesn’t remember leaves crowding his throat. Or maybe his mind failed to make the quicksnap connections that Wirt figured out in the instant before he extinguished the Dark Lantern: the link between human souls and Edelwood, and The Beast’s role in cultivating those sinister trees. 

Beatrice squeezes her fork with white knuckles. She speaks in a rush. “Wirt… _The Beast_ wanted a stranger’s soul so badly he tried to take it by force. She wasn’t dead or dying but the Edelwood was coming for her like…” 

“A pterodactyl?” Greg offers helpfully, noting the clawlike gestures Beatrice shapes with her hands. He shovels more breakfast into his mouth.

“This is serious, Greg! I’ve never seen Wirt act like that before… I didn’t think the wimp _could_ act like that—”

The lilac is dying the longer Wirt listens.

“—I mean he’s freaked me out in the past but I thought that was all just posturing, you know? Just him being dramatic because he’s _Wirt._ ” Beatrice’s siblings—and Greg—nod their heads in agreement as Beatrice rants on. “He wasn’t himself at all. We still got the stranger home in the end, I guess, but not without a _lot_ of screaming and close calls. If I weren’t there, she’d be dead.” 

Beatrice’s hazel eyes spark at each shocked face. Nobody confronts her, because with the exception of Greg they all saw the state that Beatrice limped home in. 

Expression apologetic, she reaches for Greg across the table. “Now you’re in the same danger. Wirt can’t be trusted, Greg. He’s a good guy, but he can’t control himself, and he might hurt you without even realizing what he’s doing.”

Greg slaps his fork down like this is the most ludicrous story he’s ever heard. Sadly, he doesn’t get the chance to defend his older brother, because a deafening racket of birdsong shatters the morning’s brittle peace.

It sounds as if every last bird in the woods on the other side of the river is screeching at once. Territorial trills combat harsh shrieks; melodies clash and crescendo into an earsplitting uproar; when half the family, including Beatrice, leaps from their seats to press their noses against the windows facing the mill wheel, they see birds of every kind circling over the canopy, diving and merging and circling as a dizzing mass of wings. They sound angry. Alarmed. And neither Beatrice nor any of her family can guess _why_ until dawn abruptly dives into dusk, plunging their cheerful sunlit home into murky darkness. 

“Wirt!” Beatrice cries. She searches for those asymmetrical antlers out of each first floor window. Greg echoes her, his calls for his brother punctuated by the drum of feet rushing to stop him from running out the nearest door.

Wirt’s knees buckle as he disentangles himself from the drooping lilac bush. His warning system worked perfectly—he’s able to lurch into the rioting half of the forest just as shadow absorbs his frame and his eyes become fractals of color. The Unknown struggles to reveal the raven’s location since Wirt has not caught it with his own sight, but the birds and other tree-dwelling animals triangulate his enemy _for_ him, pursuing the oil-black bird with frightening tenacity. 

The Beast churns through the trees. He’s the wing-rustled leaves, the twigs bent by the paws of ermines and squirrels, the air beaten by feathers. A party of bluejays dives viciously at the crown of a cherry tree where the raven caws in defiance, unable to lift itself back into the clouds to escape.

Wirt snatches its greasy-plumed body with both hands. The weight of his physical body sends him and his captive crashing down several boughs; the cherry catches him just before he plummets to what might have been a broken neck if he were human.

A normal bird would be pecking at Wirt’s hands, distraught. It would struggle and scream for its life. The ominously composed raven makes a noise like an avian chuckle and swivels its head to stare at Wirt—

_What are we doing in a tree when there’s a defenseless soul waiting for us in that house? A soul for centuries. Fuel for the almighty fire. We already almost had him once—_

“Stop it stop it _s͕̾t̩͑o͎p͎͝ ̫͆i͠ͅt̯͒._ G-get out of my head. You’re just a dumb animal,” Wirt chews out. His voice shakes and he remembers the monster that he had once mistaken for The Beast: the massive oil-infected wolf-creature that Rusty became after he’d horked down a black turtle. That’s all this raven is… it probably picked at some bad carrion it found by an Edelwood, and since Wirt is The Beast it’s naturally drawn to him. An evil boomerang. “L-leave me alone—understand? Don’t follow me, don’t come near me, s-stay far, _far_ away from me and my f-family.”

His own words shock him. He wasn’t only referring to Greg.

Birds and small mammals cluster in the surrounding branches, distressed for their Lord. If the raven tries to fly away, they will kill it. Wirt almost wishes the raven _would_ make a break for it, because then he wouldn’t have to dread its influence spurring him to climb down this tree _right_ now and _punch a hole through a glass windowpane to drag Greg out thrashing and crying—_

Beatrice waves her arms in front of him, shouting something Wirt can’t understand. Sir and Bram stand behind her on the dirt path; they’re armed with pots and pans and a length of rope, blocking the front door. _When did I climb out of the tree?_ Wirt thinks. Sunlight falls on the flowers as if through a screen of smoke, dim and grey. _Why are you looking at me like that?_ He tilts his head at Beatrice and garbles out the question with a voice that is more thorns-digging-into-flesh than than it is English. _The raven._ Wirt should show Beatrice the raven, so she knows that Wirt isn’t crazy, that it’s not his fault that he wants to throw her out of his way and claw over the threshold. 

The Beast lifts up his hands to show off his prey. Oil oozes out of the raven’s plumage and runs through Wirt’s trembling fingers so that his barklike exoskeleton dribbles putrid green iridescence. 

“Ŝ̨̛̹̪͔̃̏ê̩̬̙͌̈̉͜e͔̫͔͓͌̌̿̾?̥̥͍̓̀̇͝ͅ” 

Beatrice covers her mouth as if to stop herself from vomiting. The raven comes apart in Wirt’s hands like tar and ground meat, ruined feathers sticking to his talons while beak and bones fall to his hooves. 

Wirt’s surreal nightmare-slash-acid trip sloughs off him in the same muddy, messy way. He feels darkness pour from him and he heaves in a mighty breath. His ears pop. Lucidity gifts him agency over his hunger and he mirrors Beatrice’s horrified, repulsed countenance with an equally horrified mask of his own. He still holds his filthy hands out in front of him—seriously considering if he should cut them off.

“...Wirt?” Beatrice squeaks. 

From the house, gaping in astonishment out a window and watching it all, Greg blurts what they’re all thinking: “Hey— _what the heck?_ ”


	3. 🙞You🙜

Beatrice has to walk a shellshocked Wirt to the river to dunk his arms up to the elbows. While the crisp current licks the shallow grooves traced over his forearms and washes the jet gore from his claws, The Beast breathes through his nose and counts backward from one hundred. “It melted as I was holding it,” he mumbles. Beatrice nods mechanically. “It m-melted right in my hands… just like that…”

He faints face-first into the water. 

Thankfully Beatrice pulls him out by his collar; Wirt probably cannot drown but he coughs and spits anyway, shaking himself like a dog. Behind his back, Beatrice shrugs tensely at her father and older brother where they’re shuffling cautiously closer. “I think it’s all right,” she tells them shakily. Sunlight freshens back to morning clarity across the property and shadows no longer cut so black and Wirt’s teary eyes are blessedly spring-blue. He squeezes her ankle without thinking, seeking comfort, and Beatrice exhales until she’s practically draped over The Beast, supporting herself by leaning on his trembling shoulders. “Yep. We’re good.”

“Boy?” Sir calls gruffly. “You have some sorta fit?”

Bram’s eyes bounce between Beatrice and The Beast; he’s cutting off his own circulation with the rope he’s twisting taut around his hands. “Is this ‘cause you wouldn’t let him eat that stranger?” His fearful voice jumps up its normal register. “Are we being cursed now? We’re cursed, aren’t we? That's why he's got all those new flowers in his branches, like a sign or something. I knew it—I _knew_ the little weasel was dangerous—”

“Shut up, Bram,” Beatrice snaps halfheartedly. She feels Wirt whimper under her palms and hopes it’s not an admission of guilt. The flowers _are_ new, though… dainty blossoms no bigger than her palm, all a blend of confectionary pastels.

“You saw those mobbing birds, Beatrice, and the darkness… and that thing he was holding.” Sir’s observation hangs gravely in the air. He stops Bram with an extended arm when they’re about two yards away from where Wirt crouches and sniffles on the riverbank. “Not to point fingers, but… but if this _is_ a curse, it’s best we know what we’re getting ourselves into.”

Beatrice’s eyes scald with tears and a matchstick of anger strikes her spine. Her fingers dig slightly into the back of Wirt’s cloak, the fabric dyed a blotchy coffee-brown by silt from the swamp. She resists the impulse to pluck one powder-blue bloom unfurling near his ear. “Is that what this is, Beast?” she whispers.

“It melted,” Wirt repeats stupidly. He's weirdly motionless. Then he rears upright, narrowly avoiding bashing Beatrice in the nose, aquiver with excitement. “Th-the raven is gone, _that’s_ what was making me so nuts and obsessive and—and—it’s n-not here anymore!” 

Sir and Bram jerk forward when Wirt pulls Beatrice into an ebullient hug. The Beast doesn’t even notice them uncomfortably wielding their saucepans and rope; he’s hopping boyishly on his hooves while Beatrice squirms and complains and does her damndest to escape. “I’m not going to lose it around Greg,” he’s saying over Beatrice’s mussed morning hair. “I think I c-can keep it together this time. If you’re there, and your f-family…” Blue lamplights sparkle at Bram and Sir. Wirt babbles so rapidly that Beatrice’s exhausted mind is left in the dust. “They c-can tie me up, right? Maybe fashion like a, a harness of some kind? To pull me back if I’m not up for it and Greg’s in danger? It might work, I can train myself, exposure therapy or something—”

Beatrice breaks the hug by slamming her heel down on Wirt’s instep. He yelps and releases her, as shocked as she is that the strike hurt so much… and shocked further by the moisture gathered in her lower lashes as Beatrice obstinately refuses to cry.

“You scared everyone last night with your Greg-emergency,” she seethes. “You dragged me through a swamp for _days_ , forced me to wrestle the stupidity out of you, acted like a damn _lunatic,_ and now my family thinks they’re _cursed_ and all _you_ can think about is—!”

An infuriated sound blowing from the depths of her chest destroys whatever Beatrice had wanted to yell. She shoves him and Wirt stumbles back, not understanding why she isn’t as relieved as he is. “It was that _bird,_ ” Wirt explains. A note of impatience prickles under his celebration. “You know, the raven that I tried to show you? It was driving me mad—it was antagonizing me in the swamp, and it followed me here to do the same. Doesn’t that… don’t you care?”

“You— _you_ —you’re going to blame everything on a stupid crow?! I. Am. _Tired._ ” A half-sob gusts from Beatrice’s lungs. “Don’t _you_ care?”

Her first tears fall and Beatrice grimaces murderously, as if this is one more thing that Wirt has messed up. And _right_ as Wirt softens and reaches for her she turns her back on him, stalking past her father and her brother to the front door. 

Sir and Bram back away from The Beast more warily. Wirt wordlessly watches them march after Beatrice, clearly afraid that Wirt will pounce on them the moment they divert their attention. Sir stares at Wirt with a protective parent’s disapproval, his disappointment heavy enough to weigh on Wirt’s sternum; Bram’s grinding his teeth and popping his knuckles and silently promising that there’s a punch on its way to punish Wirt for making Beatrice cry.

Again. 

Before Beatrice slams the door closed, she jabs a scolding finger at Wirt in a gesture that is so like her mother, she gives Wirt chills. “You’re not coming near Greg until I say so, _Beast._ ”

"But I could try it now! Aren't you going to let me try?!" Wirt strides from the river, aggrieved, only to stop at the resolute click of a lock and the harsh swat of curtains being yanked over windows.

That galls Wirt to the point of rage. He has to leech into the cornfields and filter his frustrated screams through the stalks so he doesn’t throttle the mill instead, anger running hot as lightning in the soil. Who is Beatrice to keep his brother from him? Wasn’t she listening? It will require immense willpower and concentration but Wirt _knows_ he can interact passably with Greg, to conclude the emotional reunion that the raven had cruelly destroyed. He only wants a chance. How is he supposed to get _better_ if he’s not allowed to work on improving himself?!

This isn’t how it’s supposed to go. Wirt shouldn’t be surprised or upset but his disappointment festers alongside his hunger-craving-loving ache and it’s just not _fair._

His temper blights the part of the field he’s sulking inside. Upon noticing the withering of leaves and stems, the arthritic kink of roots, The Beast howls a squall that hushes the forest and spooks the sun behind newly brewing stormclouds. Rain taps the mill’s roof with modest droplets… and within five minutes those droplets swell to the size of quail eggs and fall heavy as artillery fire. Wirt squats under the dimming sky and feels each fleck of water hitting the woods like it’s hitting his own skin. His anger billows the nimbuses higher, denser, until they swirl purple-grey and crackle with lightning.

He petulantly occupies the twilight that hunkers around the property, growling with the thunder. They want to keep Greg’s light away from him? Fine. Wirt can play that game, too. 

🙞 ------------------------- 🙜

“Beatrice… where’s Wirt? Why didn’t he come back with you?”

Greg hops up to Beatrice the moment she locks the door behind her, Sir, and Bart. He _does_ in fact catch how her whole body tenses and he is perfectly aware that the expression on her face means she doesn’t want to talk, but one thing that Greg has learned after a lifetime of living with people older than him is persistence. _Don’t give up:_ that’s what Dad always says. Also: _Go ask your mother,_ but that doesn’t really apply here, since Ma’am is not Greg’s mother.

Beatrice exhales hard through her nose. Instead of answering Greg, she marches to the front window and elbows her sisters out of the way so that she can jerk the curtains closed. 

“We’re cursed,” Brian states to his kin. Nobody takes him seriously; their focus is riveted upon Beatrice. “Hello? Anyone?”

“Your Beast really lost it, didn’t he?” The tall pretty girl that Greg knows is Audrey raises a wavering hand toward Beatrice’s shoulder, then thinks better of it. “We… we always sort of knew he wasn’t entirely safe... but I had no idea...”

She’s talking about how Wirt resembled a pillar of midnight, how his eyes were a web of too many colors. Everybody in the house is super freaked out and taken aback—but Greg’s already witnessed his brother in Beast Mode in his dreams and can’t figure out why they’re still so shaken. Wirt went back to normal, didn’t he? After the mud bird slipped through his fingers? 

Why aren’t more people concerned about the MUD BIRD?

“Beatrice,” Greg repeats more insistently. He waves his arms like those wacky inflatable tube guys until he snares her attention and does not flinch when she glares. She knows Wirt’s eyes are scarier, right? “Why did you shut the door in Wirt’s face? Can’t he come inside too?”

The young lady who’s taken such good care of his brother all this time rolls her eyes to the ceiling. “No. Wirt can’t come inside. He’s not allowed.”

“Oh.” Greg thinks for a second. “Because of his muddy hands?”

“Because he’s a selfish, stupid animal who only thinks about himself and _his_ problems and he’s an overdramatic unpredictable _ridiculous_ branch-headed _loser_ who is DELUSIONAL if he thinks I’m letting him get off easy! I’m not going to let him eat you, Greg, do you hear me? _I’m not!_ ”

Beatrice breathes roughly as she glowers down at him. The rest of her family is at a loss, gathered around the living room as if the faintest peep will bring it down around their ears. 

“I don’t care if that goat-footed imbecile throws himself against that door bawling his dumb face off— _nobody_ lets him in, nobody acknowledges him. Wirt is in _time out._ ” The youngest siblings go wide-eyed and share a schoolyard _oooh;_ Beatrice’s older siblings all look meaningfully at each other; Greg frowns, annoyed, because of course Wirt would be put in time-out when Greg’s raring to finally catch up with him.

It’s just not fair!

“Can we still… go outside to do chores?” Andrew ventures, standing next to his father. 

Beatrice deflates slightly and blinks, as if she’s only now realizing how her role as Wirt’s unspoken keeper has hefted veritable leadership status upon her. Ma’am and Sir make the rules, but _Beatrice_ is the Beast Expert. “Well… probably? He never tried to go after _me_ in the swamp, he just lashed out when I tried to stop him. I think Greg is the only one who’s in actual danger.”

“If my little sister can beat some sense into that pansy, then I’m sure I can go check traps,” Benjamin boasts. However, Greg notes how the burly older boy hasn’t put down his rope yet, and he’d bet a quarter that Brody is still pretty scared of Wirt.

“Is that what we’re supposed to do if he gets too wild?” Andrew asks dubiously. “Beat him up?”

“Worked for me,” Beatrice replies defensively. 

Audrey clucks chidingly at her. “That’s not how you handle boys, Bea. You’re always too much vinegar, not enough honey.”

“I’ll show _you_ vinegar—”

“Since Beatrice says it’s safe to do chores, I think it’s time we all got to work.” Ma’am claps her hands, assuming the reins. “The big boys can go help their father. Ladies, you’ll stick with me. Gregory,” she smiles at him, and Greg hadn’t realized how much he’d missed people smiling. A funny warm feeling nests in his tummy. “We’ll find you some clothes to wear. Why don’t you help the baby birds straighten out the rooms?”

“Can I go see Wirt after I’m done?” Greg asks hopefully. “I’ll work real hard, and I can help beat Wirt up if he gets too wild.” He flexes his biceps to demonstrate his strength. Whaling on his brother isn’t exactly what Greg had in mind for quality time, but lots of kids wrestle with their brothers. _Wirt_ has never wrestled with him, but maybe that’s about to change. 

He’ll kick Wirt’s pants off if that’s all it takes to be with him.

Everyone tromps off to get properly dressed. Beatrice lingers in the living room, biting the inside of her cheek and considering Greg’s infectious positivity. “Be patient,” she tells him eventually. “I’ve got a few questions for _you_ later, number one being why you’re here…”

A staccato tap of rain hitting the windows distracts her. Beatrice peeks through the curtains—

Thunder ricochets through the house like a gunshot. Raindrops smatter against the glass. There hadn’t been a cloud in the sky at dawn and all at once it’s as gloomy as it was when the birds were shrieking. A haunting howl wrenches itself beneath the roaring wind, sending goosebumps prickling up and down Greg’s arms. Was that _Wirt_ making that noise? 

Water sprays Greg’s face when Beatrice pops the latch on the window and throws it open. She stands on her tiptoes to lean out, heedless of the weather busting its way inside. Her defiant bellow spurs Greg to join the rest of the little kids racing upstairs—all of them fearing Beatrice’s wrath more than the melancholy Beast’s.

“GO AHEAD AND THROW YOUR TANTRUM, YOU BABY.” 

And Greg would swear on his favorite Wirt-quilt that the storm bellows back.


	4. 🙞Call🙜

It rains for the rest of the day. Sir goes out with the big boys to do what they can around the property, but they slog back indoors looking like they took a swim in the river. The family decides to wait out the bleak weather. “It’s only a spring shower,” Ma’am soothes. “The sun will come out soon enough.”

Greg plays with Dante, Florence, and Edmund to pass the time. They take turns peering out the windows on both floors to keep a lookout for Wirt and invent a new game; Beast Tag is so fun that Greg is only a smidgen disappointed that he never sees Wirt’s flowery antlers or his glowing eyes.

The rain gentles after the sun goes down. Dante lends Greg one of his nightgowns to sleep in, though Greg ultimately opts for his dinosaur pajamas, which he folded neatly on the cot he’s borrowing in the brothers’ room. When he asks where Wirt usually sleeps, since there’s no empty cot waiting for _him,_ Calvin shrugs and ruffles Greg’s hair. “Wirt usually beds down in the woods, little fella.”

“Ohhhh.” That satisfies Greg. Sleeping in the woods suits Wirt just fine, him being a forest spirit and all… although Greg adds another thing to his mental list of “stuff to bring Wirt” once he’s an expert at traveling between the Unknown and Home. Until they can figure out how to get Wirt out of here too, Greg can dig up the matching dino pajamas that Wirt buried somewhere in his closet—they could be twins!

The household settles down to sleep, lulled by the rhythm of droplets dancing on the roof. Greg drifts into formless dreams. He’s typically a heavy sleeper, when he’s slumbering in the comfort of his own room… 

But this isn’t his room. That’s why, when a door opens somewhere in the house, so do Greg’s eyes. The boy yawns and rolls out of his cot on his sneakiest feet, padding stealthily out of the boys’ bedroom and down the hall, passing the cracked-open door of the girls’ room to creep downstairs. 

He _could_ make a run for it to hunt down Wirt. He knows how to unlock doors, and he’s not afraid to wander the Unknown for as long as it takes. Probably he could find his older brother before anybody even knew he was gone. Unfortunately, before he has a chance to reach for the doorknob, a hiccup seizes his attention. 

Greg’s listened to enough crying over the past several months to recognize when someone’s actively trying not to be heard.

“Beatrice, are you all right?”

The young woman chokes on her inhale and spills her glass of water over the countertop she’s supporting herself against. She hastily mashes the heel of her hand into her eye, as if that will push her tears back into where they came from, and waves away Greg’s concern. “Go back to bed. If you’re trying to sneak out, I _will_ have Bram sit on you.”

“Nah, I don’t wanna get rained on.” Beatrice doesn’t need to know that Greg has no issues with getting rained on. What’s a little water in comparison to good old fashioned Brother Time? “You don’t look so good. Are you sick?”

“God, you ask a lot of questions.” 

“I’m a kid!”

A thin smile feebly tilts Beatrice’s mouth. Some of her curls cling to her face and her eyelids droop; her chest makes a faint rattly noise when she breathes, and Greg feels the heat of her skin on her palm the instant before she snatches her hand away. “I’m fine, Greg. It’s just a fever. I’ll get over it.”

She denies Greg’s kind offer to keep her company in the kitchen while she sips her water. Greg ignores her, and plops down in a chair. After she understands that the boy isn’t heading back to bed until she is, Beatrice sighs. “Oh… whatever. We both have some stuff we want to figure out, right? Let’s talk.” 

In whispered words, Greg explains his attempts at dreaming and pieces of what Wirt has missed at home. Beatrice wears a disturbed expression when Greg mentions how he crawled from the lake… she seems desperate to change the subject, shifting the conversation toward Wirt’s misadventures and The Beast’s place in her family. Greg’s simply happy to hear that he’d been right about Wirt not being alone—Beatrice and her kin have admirably bothered Wirt as Greg would’ve, had he been here. 

“You feeling better now? You’re not as sweaty.” Greg points happily to Beatrice’s forehead. She blinks, surprised.

“Huh. Wirt must be back.”

“I don’t think I understand what that has to do with anything,” Greg begins. “Are your Wirt-senses tingling?”

“Nothing. It’s nothing. The fever and Wirt are unrelated,” Beatrice babbles. She swats at Greg to herd him upstairs, ruthlessly shushing the rest of his questions. “You. Bed. Sleep. Now.” Her body blocks the doorway to the brothers’ room until Greg grumbles into his cot and tucks himself in.

“Beatrice,” Greg hisses, catching her as the door whines closed. “Can we talk again next time, while I wait for Wirt to be good?”

“There won’t be a next time,” Beatrice promises quietly. And shuts the door. 

🙞 ------------------------- 🙜

Beatrice is wrong about the “next time.” It pours morning, noon, and night the day after a bird dissolves in Wirt’s claws. No one spots Wirt in the gloom. 

Greg awakens to Beatrice rustling downstairs again. She’s the same kind of sick-tired she was last night, and she fails to fool Greg with her bravado. “It’s seriously nothing, Greg.” A lie. “Please don’t tell anybody about this.”

Beatrice makes a fatal mistake, asking Greg for that favor. He’s not fool enough to do favors for _free._

Visiting Wirt in exchange for his loyal silence seems like a fair trade.

“I can do you a solid for anything else, but I cannot let you go outside, Greg. I really, really can’t. You _know_ why I can’t let you do that,” Beatrice tells him urgently. She struggles to keep her voice down, so that none of her siblings discover her in the kitchen. “What if Wirt tries to turn you into a tree?”

“What if he doesn’t?” Greg counters, carefree as a breeze. “He didn’t try to eat me when I saw him in that field. He was _happy_ I was there. And he only made a whole bunch of flowers grow, not trees.”

“Wirt is _dangerous,_ ” Beatrice presses.

“So’re you,” Greg argues. He chuckles at Beatrice’s dumbstruck visage. 

In the end, Beatrice has to agree to allow Greg to leave the house—supervised, of course. In return, Greg zips his lips about Beatrice’s fevers. He’s good on his favors, and he ain’t no snitch.


	5. 🙞Me🙜

Three days of drumming, pounding, ceaseless rain. Three days of earsplitting thunder that makes Rusty whine from under the bed and Edmund cry. Not even the slenderest ray of sunlight manages to pierce through those gargantuan castle-shaped clouds, their smoke-and-iron towers so solid and vast it’s a wonder they do not crush the earth. 

On the third day of Greg pestering Beatrice about Wirt, of the whole family riled stir-crazy and bored within the house, Beatrice finally breaks. 

“That’s it. I’m going to find him.” Beatrice shrugs on her coat and stuffs her feet into her boots, committed to drowning the moment she steps foot outdoors. Greg, who’d been following her around like a duckling, whoops his excitement.

“Yeah-ha-ha! I knew we were going to get Wirt soon, I just had to be patient. Good things come to those who wait, and _better_ things come to—”

“Nope, sorry bud,” Beatrice cuts him off. She laces up her boots as fast as she can, hoping to dart out before her family takes interest. “It’s not good for kids to be out in this weather. Go… play Beast Tag with Florence and Dante.”

“But I want to go find Wirt with you!” Greg cups his hands around his mouth to ineffectively whisper-shout. “Plus, you owe me a _faaaaavorrrrr._ ”

“What’s this about finding Wirt?” Beatrice’s mother bustles into the front room from the kitchen, still holding a wooden spoon and wearing her favorite bluebird-embroidered apron. Her expression tightens into mistrust upon noting Beatrice with her hood up and one hand on the doorknob. “Just where do you think you’re off to, girl?” 

“Are you going to look for your Beast?” Audrey asks, agast, from her seat by the fireplace. “You’ll be soaked through!”

“If she wants pneumonia, I won’t stop her,” grumbles Bram, also seated near the fireplace, without looking up from his knitting.

“I just want to check on Wirt.” Beatrice struggles to tamp down her exasperation. “You know how he gets when he’s alone for too long.”

Greg slaps his knee and winks at her conspiratorially. “Oh boy, do I ever.”

“When who’s alone for too long?” Andrew stomps down the stairs with Edmund clinging to his back, Dante behind them wearing a blanket-cape and growling. 

“ _Her Beast,_ ” Audrey quips suggestively—and Beatrice experiences a strong urge to push her sister into the hearth. 

“We’re going to go look for Wirt!” Greg beams. He points enthusiastically between himself and Beatrice. “ _Finally._ ”

Beatrice’s knuckles clench white on the doorknob. “No, there is no ‘we,’ it’s just me, I am going to to check on Wirt _by myself—_ ”

Audrey makes kissy noises. Bram rolls his eyes in disgust. Andrew offers to come with Beatrice at the same time their mother clucks “I won’t have you catching your death in that storm, you can wait until the weather clears” and Greg pipes up about his favor and now the rest of the family is crowding into the livingroom to inquire about all this commotion and Beatrice’s face reddens with frustration. 

“I’ll be right back,” she barks. And she knows she’ll suffer an earful when she returns, but she rushes outside anyway, slamming the door behind her.

Beatrice is only a few strides from the edge of the woods when she hears the door open and shut again. Her eyes bulge angrily from their sockets at the sight of both Andrew and Greg sloshing up the muddy garden to reach her. 

“You’re going the wrong way!” Greg yells, waving his arms under a borrowed cloak. Wonderful. Now Wirt’s precious baby brother will catch his death of cold and it’ll be all Beatrice’s fault. 

“He’s by the river,” Andrew adds, blinking rapidly to clear the water streaming over his eyelashes. He hasn’t even tied his bootlaces and has to carefully pick up his feet as he waddles toward Beatrice. “Calvin just saw him out the kitchen window. If you’d waited another _five minutes_ for Greg and I to put on our raingear, you would’ve—Beatrice, slow down!”

She’s hiked up her skirts to run toward the river, spurred to reach Wirt first before he scents Greg and loses his damn mind. The two brothers will reunite properly at _some point_ but until Beatrice is absolutely, positively certain Wirt won’t hurt Greg she has to guarantee that Wirt is _safe…_

Safe to be around. Sane. Himself. Not snarling like a rabid animal and conjuring tantrum-tempests.

Beatrice has to circle around the mill, toward the modest falls that feed the rain-swollen river. What are usually gently trickling sheets now gush three times their usual volume, sloshing downward to erupt in pale grey fountains of spray. And submerged up to his hips in the coursing current, sleeves rolled up past his elbows and cloak abandoned on the bank, is Wirt—plunging his talons into the water and flinging onyx stones over his back.

His soaked, overlong hair is slick and black as pitch, forelock dripping alongside his nose; his clothes are plastered against his skin, outlining the sharpness of his shoulder blades and the raised, scaly bumps of his vertebrae. Beatrice momentarily forgets what she’s doing, fixated on those dark ridges along his back, and startles when Wirt cranes his neck around to blind her with his yellow-burning stare. 

“There’s too many turtles!” he raves at her, shaking a fist currently holding what she’d mistaken for a stone. Indeed, in inordinate amount of turtles are crawling aimlessly through the downpour where Wirt tossed them ashore, shells glistening with the sheen of oil, more turtles than Beatrice has ever seen at one time. Enough turtles to fill baskets upon baskets. “There’s probably a hundred of them—m-maybe more than that—they keep coming down the river, Beatrice, _why are there so many turtles—_ ” 

Oh, for heaven’s sake… the boy has already lost it, and that’s _before_ Greg and Andrew catch up.

“Wirt!” Greg chirps happily. He bounds toward The Beast and Beatrice has to hook an arm around him before he splashes into the river. While the kid grapples futilely against Beatrice’s practiced grip, Andrew blinks owlishly between his sister and Wirt, the latter of whom looks emotionally torn between acknowledging Greg and fishing for more turtles.

“Wirt… what are you doing?” Andrew seamlessly takes over Greg-restraining duty from Beatrice, hardly reacting to Greg’s small bunched fists pounding his back and chest. 

“T-take Greg back inside,” Wirt replies, strained. Two more turtles join their brethren out of the river. How long has he been at this? Turtles bob in the water, climb over each other on the pebbles of the bank, disappear into the reeds. “He shouldn’t be out here… it’s not… I̲̚͜͝'̨̣̔̒m̮̙͑̽ ̨̼̾̒n̼͇͒́ọ̗͊̾t̢̬͆͊… he isn’t safe! H-he isn’t safe and _what—are—all—these—s̭͑t͇̐u̝̾p̬̂i͓̒d̲̆—t̰̒h͎̀i̻͠n̛̮g̠s͚̓..._ ” His words crash together into an inhuman rumble that shudders like the furious peel of thunder crackling right above them. 

Andrew nods, “You got it,” and turns back toward the house, but Greg unleashes a heartbroken sound that warns of genuine, imminent tears. Wirt pauses, panting heavily and irises cooling to their clear blue glow. He glances down at the turtles he grips in each hand like someone waking from hypnosis. 

Wirt drops the turtles back into the tumultuous river with two _plunks._ His shoulders creak downward. He reaches up to wipe the water out of his eyes, and stiffens, evidently aware for the first time that he’s standing in a river during a deluge and could not be more drenched if he himself were totally liquid. And then he’s peering sheepishly at Beatrice, Andrew, and his brother, concern rewriting the panic on his features. “Wh-why are you out here? You know it’s _thunder-storming,_ right? You could get hit by lightning, or contract pneumonia...” 

“We’re checking on you!” Greg belts out over still more thunder. He wriggles miraculously out of Andrew’s arms—Beatrice gasps, stomach flipping, missing Greg by the breadth of a finger as she lunges for him—and Wirt hastily slogs out of the river to scoop Greg up by the armpits before the little boy can join him, stepping over piles of turtles. 

Adrenalin trembles down Beatrice’s limbs. Any second now, and that innocuous blue light will spin into triple-hued rings. Terrified, Beatrice snags a turtle sneaking over the toe of her boot and raises her arm in prime throwing position…

Yet Wirt is speaking softly to Greg, not in the distorted timbre of The Beast, and there’s nothing duplicitous or hungry in the way he adjusts Greg’s rain cloak with attentive claws. 

“You’ve checked on me. Here I am.” Wirt jerkily pats Greg’s head, and Beatrice guesses that he hasn’t had much practice showing affection for his baby brother. The gesture is an awkward imitation of what he’s seen Andrew and Bram do for their younger siblings… what Andrew and Bram have sometimes done for him. “You really do need to go dry off, though. I’m serious. This can’t be good for you. You’re not a bullfrog.” He scans the shiny shells surrounding them. "...Or a turtle."

“You done playin' with the turts? Okay, let’s go.” Greg hums a jaunty tune and goose-steps toward the mill, expecting everyone to follow.

Wirt meets Beatrice’s stare… and a corner of his mouth pulls ruefully upward upon observing her elbow cocked and ready to hurl a turtle at his skull. After a beat, Wirt shakes a waterlogged weed off one of his hooves, scooches some round reptiles out of his way, and trails after Greg.

Beatrice and Andrew flank him, the former pitching her voice into a low whisper. “Where the _hell_ have you been? And how’re you controlling yourself right now?”

“Bram’s convinced we’re cursed again,” Andrew mutters, puzzled, but Wirt keeps his eyes trained on Greg—who grins back at them with a thumbs-up, none the wiser. 

“I told you, it was that raven,” Wirt murmurs. He makes a motion as if to close his cloak about his shoulders, remembers that he left it by the falls, and sighs, self-consciously hugging his spindly arms. “It’s still… it’s ha-hard to r-restrain myself, and half of me wants…” A shudder ripples up his back. “Willpower is like a muscle: I have to strengthen it, stretch it. I think it helps that you’re here… and that it’s _Greg._ ”

Beatrice closes her fingers around Wirt’s bicep and drags him to a stop; Andrew worriedly vacillates between his younger sister and the strange little boy they’ve taken in who’s obliviously jumping in puddles.

“Is that what you’ve been doing the past two nights?” growls Beatrice. “ _Stretching?_ ”

Confusion tightens around Wirt’s eyes. He pulls from her grip, the annoyance from their last failed conversation plain on his pale face. “What are you talking about?”

Beatrice hesitates, gaze flickering to Andrew, then to Greg. She starts to say “don't play dumb” and instead reels backward at the spiral of hues segmenting Wirt’s eyes. The Beast folds forward at the waist, panting heavily; Greg notices that they’re all stopped in the flower field and stomps heedlessly toward them. 

Willpower, her foot. She should never have agreed to Greg’s favor—Wirt the boy might love his brother, but Wirt The Beast wants only to consume.

“Wirt, don’t go away!” Greg keens. He fights against Andrew and Beatrice, both of them steadfastly barring him from the antlered menace. “We’re going inside now! You gotta dry off or you’ll get sick and then you’ll have to stay in bed and I’ll have to wait even longer to—”

“S̤̘͐̌ǫ̖͌́r̯̻̄͑r͙͖͒̊y̛͇͙͗.̞̞͋̔ Ṣ̛̟̅ô̩̼͝r̠͖̋́r͎̯̅̇y̱̻̆͗.̱͔͆͛” Words that spatter them like the rain, thick as mire. Wirt’s form fades in and out of shadows. He gives Greg a long, long look… and then he vanishes before their eyes, disappearing behind a silvery swath of fog.


	6. 🙞That🙜

“I’m going after him,” Beatrice declares. 

“He did the _tea thing_ though!” Andrew sputters, amazed. “How’re you going to find him?”

“I’m coming too,” Greg asserts. At Beatrice’s warning glare he juts out his lower lip. “If you don’t let me come, I’m _telling._ ”

He has her, there. Beatrice cuts off Andrew’s burgeoning questions by shouting over him and resolutely facing the river, searching for a place where the current isn’t so swollen or fast. “Fantastic—we’ll all go look for Wirt! This is a _great_ idea that won’t go wrong at all.”

Heat doesn’t railroad her out of nowhere, so Wirt must be lingering on the property. As much as Beatrice would prefer to cloister Greg in safety and completely avoid dealing with the idiot Beast who’s spitefully made her sick every night since he brought her the oil-raven, she supposes it would be best to wrestle some sense into him. Besides, somebody else is bound to notice her stealing out of bed and put the pieces together themselves. This has to stop.

Beatrice’s skirts are already soaked through every layer. She stubbornly bunches them up and wades through a shallower strip of the river, coaching herself through the familiar sensation of water flooding her shoes. At least it isn’t stagnant _swamp_ water. 

Andrew reluctantly carries Greg on his shoulders behind her, uttering a steady stream of curses that Greg admonishes him for. Beatrice strides immediately into the treeline.

“Wirt! I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you about the gross bird… I’m still mad at you but we should probably talk about that, yeah?” A dagger of lightning shocks the woods white. The resulting explosion of thunder makes her teeth chatter. Andrew swears louder, carefully lowering Greg to the ground so that they’re not a walking lightning rod. “You managed to go like, five whole minutes without hurting Greg. That’s… that’s a good thing! I didn’t even have to punch you!”

They hike aimlessly, Beatrice searching for any sign of Wirt’s physical shape flitting through the deluge. Any minute now… Greg is _right here,_ out in the open, ripe for reaping. 

She’s so preoccupied with her Beast hunt that she doesn’t notice the dead birds until she’s stepping on them.

Tiny bones crumble under her toes. Beatrice pushes her windswept locks from her eyes, stares down at the glistening mud, and feels her blood congeal in her veins.

There are bird corpses everywhere. She’d mistaken their outlines for piles of fallen leaves, blown into the crooks of roots by the storm. Feathers are red-black with blood and soil. Broken legs bend from broken bodies like snapped twigs. And although the rain sheets down hard enough for the branches above them to bend and for puddles to spread on the forest floor, the torrent of water still doesn’t wash away the green-blue-violet glimmer of black oil that seeps around the scattered things like the bubbling broth of a cauldron. 

Beatrice backs up into Andrew’s chest. She yells at the unexpected contact, fists instinctively swinging. 

“What the hell is this?” Andrew deftly catches her flying hands. “Bram was wrong about the curse… wasn’t he? This is… this is unrelated to Wirt. I’m sure of it. We didn’t do anything to cross him.”

But Beatrice’s stricken stare finds Greg where he’s cringing away from a tangled pile of decimated sparrows, covering his mouth with his hand. 

The birds of the forest had rioted the morning after her family took in Greg; Wirt glided out of that avian turmoil with a wretched Edelwood raven gripped in his claws that liquified into the very same oil that’s squelching beneath her soles. She’d denied Wirt an opportunity to see Greg, and this storm slammed the mill. Fever has ravaged her multiple nights in a row, and yet Wirt appears genuinely ignorant of traveling anywhere to trigger her illness. Their river is teeming with black turtles and Wirt’s hiding from them, insane with hunger, and his woodland home is littered with oil-splattered dead birds and oh, _oh holy hell,_ they are absolutely cursed.

“Bram was right,” Beatrice says, shaken. “I underestimated him. I’ve been treating him like a dumb teenage boy and expecting him to act like one with enough reinforcement but I was wrong, Andrew, this isn’t him, this isn’t _my_ Wirt.”

Two arcs of lightning lace the atmosphere simultaneously. Thunder hammers her eardrums and bludgeons her bones. Beatrice dives for Greg—

A pair of claws snatches him first. Despair overflows every chamber of Beatrice's heart.

“D̍ôn̂'̕t ̎t̋a͋k̈́e̛ ̈́h̿i̛m̓ ̓ảẘa̾ỹ ̅f̊r̈́ö́m͆ ͑m͋ẻ,” The Beast threatens.

“Wirt?” Greg makes no effort to struggle. He turns his open face up at his brother—or rather, the ebony-chiseled entity that is _usually_ his brother. Accursed shadow stains Wirt from head to hoof, including the blossoms that now stud The Beast’s antlers like knots of infected tissue. “I don’t like this version of Beast Tag… I think you’re getting too into character.”

“He’s not playing a game, Greg,” Beatrice utters faintly. Her heart races painful-fast. Andrew is stiff with fear next to her, unable to rip his attention away from the Beast standing a mere yard in front of him. The Beast of sinister nursery rhymes and chilling bedtime stories meant to keep children inside after sunset. The Beast who eats souls while their bodies are still alive.

Wirt—The Beast—hugs Greg possessively. No Edelwood splinters up from the curdled slurry of bird-guts, however… so maybe it’s not too late. Maybe Beatrice can actually snap Wirt out of it without hurting him—and more importantly, without Wirt hurting Greg.

“Y-you were so good at the river,” she flounders. “I made Greg stay in the house because we _both_ didn’t want a repeat of Red, yeah? Do you remember bringing Greg to us that first night? How scared you were for him?”

“When are we tackling him?” Andrew hisses under his breath, directing his words out the smallest corner of his mouth. “On three?”

Beatrice ignores him. She can’t afford to lose her tenuous grip on the situation. “You snapped yourself out of this before. He’s your _brother,_ Wirt. Fight it. Whatever you did here… whatever curse this is, Greg doesn’t deserve it! Nobody does!”

“I’ll forgive you no matter what, Brother-O-Mine,” Greg adds. He pats one of the talons caging him in, no more concerned than a puppy lazing in a sunbeam. His trust batters Beatrice in the gut.

“Y̊o̔ủ ̓t̿h̓íñk͝… that I did this?” Wirt shudders, layers of his devilish throaty resonance flaking off. His incandescent eyes spotlight the poor dead birds, illuminating more that lie deeper in the woods that Beatrice hadn’t seen. The center of his irises burns white-hot. “You’re blam̧i̘ṉg̬ ̢t̤h͔i̲s̻ ̭o̩n͎ ̞m̢e̥?!”

“If not you, then _what?_ What happened here?!” Beatrice cries.

“A̅ ̄m͛ur̀d̀ẽr͋,” Wirt replies. Fury trembles in his voice. “A̎ ̏ċõn̅s̃p̍i̭r̐͜a̬̍c̺̔y͜͝.”

A final flash of lightning blinds Beatrice instantly. Her ears ring with the backlash of electric air erupting. She stumbles against Andrew, clinging to his arm like a frightened child, blinking over and over to clear her sight… but the blackness that saturates the woods has nothing to do with her bolt-bleached vision. Shadow smothers Wirt and extends from him to pool in a coal-black lake across the fallen leaves and fallen birds; abnormal shade drapes in the spaces between the trees and sheathes each trunk, every branch. And upon those branches, swooping in through the rain to caw and croak—their number forming a predatory ring around the group—is a swarm of midnight-colored birds with eyes as cold and bright as stars. 

Rain pelts Beatrice’s head, shoulders, face, yet she hears no rattle of water or gale of wind. Her own pulse throbs loud and terrified near the forefront of her awareness. A numbing, choking dread pushes its fist down her throat to crush all the contents of her rib cage. “Give Greg back,” she rasps weakly. “Don’t do this, WIrt.”

An eerie chuckle circles the watching birds and echoes from the abyss where The Beast stands, holding Greg close. It’s a sound of worms tunneling through rotting flesh and blood percolating into roots. 

The Beast narrows those penetrating eyes in what might be a smile or a snarl, hidden in the fathomless night of his features. “H͋o̕w̏ ̈́d̉àr͊e͂ y̦͊o̻̎u̫̔ ̢͊c͔a̘̐l͔͆l͆ m̝e̬ ̮t͉h̞a̟t͇?”

The birds divebomb Beatrice and Andrew as a singular screeching mob. Beatrice screams, beating away vicious beaks and slicing claws, knuckles coming away sticky with oil and tarry feathers—she calls out Greg’s name over and over, fighting to reach him and yet desperate not to lose track of her older brother amidst the onslaught—there are too many crows, ravens, _whatever the hell they are_ —and all it takes is Beatrice glancing away for a _heartbeat_ for The Beast to abscond into his manufactured darkness with his prize.

Beatrice falls to her knees in the mire and the oil and the polluted rainwater. She does not respond to Andrew desperately asking her where Wirt went, what happened to Greg. 

The evil birds lose interest and fly after their master, taking the oppressive darkness with them. 

It is over.

Beatrice lost.

**Author's Note:**

> Bonus Tracks: “Bedbugs” by The Squirrel Nut Zippers; “Killing Moon” by Pavement; “If I Had A Heart” by Fever Ray; “The Curse” by Agnes Obel; “A Demon Like Me” by Blair Crimmins and The Hookers
> 
> It took me forever to like something I wrote enough to post this, so those of you still with me get a hefty handful of bonus tracks. If I were to compile _this_ version of the installment with all the pages I had to delete and rewrite and Frankenstein into what you see here, it would add up to **almost 40 pages on Google docs.** For me, that's bananas!
> 
> Anyway I hope you enjoyed my shamelessly-titled descent into madness :)


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